Painting a street green hasn't stimulated one new job

Washington Post ^ | November 7, 2009 | Alec MacGillis

[neverdem]

Energy-efficiency investments Tangible gains still ahead for $25 billion initiative

In Baltimore, the 300 block of East 23 1/2 Street is getting patched up in time for winter. One economic stimulus program is paying to insulate 11 rental rowhouses, another is paying for furnaces and a third is covering the cost for reflective roofs to be installed by prison inmates in a job-training program.

The block is part of one of the biggest initiatives ever undertaken by the federal government, a nationwide push to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. But as the national unemployment rate crosses into the double digits and Republicans question the stimulus program's impact, the work on East 23 1/2 -- even with all of its activity -- has so far not produced a single job.

Nine months after Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus package, there is little tangible to show for one of its biggest single areas of investment, the $25 billion energy-efficiency effort. That points to one of the central tensions of President Obama's landmark stimulus package: His goal was to inject money quickly into the economy while at the same time laying the groundwork for his broader, transformational agenda on energy, education and health care...

--snip--

David Bradley, director of the National Community Action Foundation, says the extra scrutiny has slowed things down. While the program seemed to hold great promise for a rapid boost in hiring, most states are only just getting it underway, according to reports released Friday. The program is sending $394 million to New York, but it had produced only 43 jobs there by early October; Michigan had spent $3 million of the $243 million it received...

[neverdem]

The title is wrong. NY got 43 jobs. /s

IMHO, the stimulus is having a long, hard slog getting through the sclerotic behemoth called bureacracy, but that's the price that had to be paid to satisfy statist dogma.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

The history of "fiscal stimulus" programs shows that the stimulus is never applied in time. In fact, it's usually 180* out of sync with economic cycles (arriving just in time to fuel inflation).

[mvpel]

... a third is covering the cost for reflective roofs to be installed by prison inmates in a job-training program.

[fortunecookie]

IMHO, the stimulus is having a long, hard slog getting through the sclerotic behemoth called bureacracy,

And yet far too many want to apply this same bureacracy to health care. Boggles the mind.

but that's the price that had to be paid to satisfy statist dogma.

Very costly. So many seem to think that someone else will have to bear the cost, not them.

[NicknamedBob]

"Painting a street green hasn't stimulated one new job"

I certainly can't think of a more visible and obvious way to create a "green" job.

[neverdem]

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[GeronL]

Remmeber even if it lasts for a week it is still recorded as a “job”